The House by the River Part 4

"Quick," he whispered, and got his right arm under the sack. Stumbling and straining, with a reckless disturbance of rugs and mats, they bundled the sagging body of Emily Gaunt into the dining-room. In the dining-room John Egerton halted and laid his end of her down. He was not strong, and she was heavy. Stephen clung to her feet, and the two of them stood listening, very shaky and afraid. There was no sound in the street now. The steps must have pa.s.sed the door. From the rear there was the melancholy hooting of a tug, calling for its waiting barges at Ginger Wharf. They could hear the slow, methodical panting of her engines and the furtive swish of the water at her bows. In the garden a cat was wailing--horribly like a child in pain. To John Egerton these familiar sounds seemed like the noises of a new world, the new world he had entered at about a quarter-past nine, when he had become a partner, an accomplice, in this wretched piece of brutality and deceit. He felt curiously identified with it now--he was part of it, not merely an impersonal observer. He had a sensation of personal guilt.

"It's all right," said somebody, very far away, in the voice of Stephen Byrne--a hoa.r.s.e and furtive voice.

John Egerton picked up his burden, and another staggering stage was accomplished into the conservatory.

It was dusk now, but a large moon was up, and thin streams of silver filtered through the opaque roof and the crowded vine-leaves on to the long bundle on the floor. It was too light, Stephen thought, for this kind of work.

When they had halted he said, "Wait a minute, John--I'll go and see if the coast is clear." He went quickly down the stone steps into the tiny garden. The long, rich gra.s.s of Stephen's "lawn" was drenched and glistening with dew. There was the heavy scent of something in the next-door garden, and over all a hot, intolerable stillness. Stephen became suddenly oppressed with the sense of guilt. Instinctively he stepped on to the wet gra.s.s and rustled softly through it to the river, his silk socks sponging up the dew.

Over the shallow wall he inspected furtively the silent river. Nothing moved. It was slack water, and the downward procession of tugs had not properly begun. The water was smooth; the black reflections of the opposite trees were sharp and perfect. Down towards Hammersmith a few lights hung like pendant jewels in the water. Over the far houses there was a flicker like summer lightning from an electric train. A huddle of driftwood and odd refuse floated motionless in mid-stream, very black and visible, waiting for the tide to turn; but along the edges the stream already crept stealthily down, lapping softly against the moored ranks of boats, against Stephen's boat riding comfortably beneath him.

In the neighbouring gardens nothing moved. About this hour in the hot weather the residents of Hammerton Chase would creep out secretly into their gardens and cast their refuse into the river, and there was often to be heard at dusk a scattered succession of subdued splashes.

But tonight there were no splashes. Probably the duty was already done.

Stephen remembered incongruously this local habit, and was at once relieved and disappointed. Too many people prowling in their gardens might be dangerous. On the other hand, there was a certain safety in a mult.i.tude of splashes. One more would have made no difference.

There were no splashes now, and scarcely any sound: only the fretful muttering of distant traffic, the occasional rumble of buses on the far-off bridge, and the small plops of fishes leaping at the moon. Close to Stephen was an un.o.btrusive munching in the wired s.p.a.ce where Joan's rabbits were kept. A buck rabbit lay hunched in the moonlight masticating contentedly the last remnants of the evening cabbage.

Another nosed at the wire-netting, begging without conviction for further illicit supplies. Stephen stooped down automatically and rubbed his nose.

But for the moonlight and the present slackness of the tide the moment was propitious. Stephen walked back more boldly into the conservatory.

"You take the feet," he said.

Without further speech they picked up the bundle and descended laboriously into the garden. The bright moon intimidated John. He looked back over his shoulder for people peering out of windows. But only the windows of his own house commanded the garden; and Mrs. Bantam, his housekeeper, would be long since in bed. Paddling quietly through the dew, he, too, thought fantastically of other burdens he had smuggled down to the river on many a breathless night, pailfuls of potato-peelings and old tins and ashes. In his mind he gave a mute hysterical chuckle at the thought. What other residents, he wondered, had taken this kind of contraband through their gardens in the secret night? Old Dimple, the barrister--ha! ha!--or Mrs. Ambrose? Perhaps they, too, had strangled people in their house and consigned them guiltily to the condoning Thames. Perhaps all those sober, respectable people were capable, like Stephen, of astonishing crimes. Nothing, now, could be really surprising. G.o.d, what's that?

There was a sudden scuffle and clatter in the dark angle by the river wall--only the rabbits panicking into corners at the silent coming of a stranger. But John was aware of the violent beating of his heart.

They laid Emily on the ground and looked over the wall. The tide now had definitely turned. The middle stream was smoothly moving, oily and swift. John felt happier. It would soon be over now. An easy thing, to slip her over into the friendly water ... no more of this hideous heaving and fumbling with a cold body in a sweat of anxiety.

But to Stephen, regarding doubtfully the close row of boats a hundred yards downstream, new and disquieting uncertainties had occurred. To him, too, it had seemed a simple thing to drop Emily over the wall and let the river dispose of her. But supposing the river failed, flung her against the mooring-chain of one of those boats, jammed her with the tide under the sloping bows of Mr. Adamson's decrepit hulk, left her there till the tide went down.... He saw with a frightening clearness Emily Gaunt being discovered in the morning on the muddy foresh.o.r.e of Hammerton Terrace--discovered by Andrews, the longsh.o.r.eman, or a couple of small boys, or Thingummy Rawlins, prowling down from his garden to tinker with his motor-boat.... No, that would never do.

He said in a low voice, "John ... we'll have to take her out in the boat ... we can't just drop her.... These d.a.m.ned boats ... supposing she caught ..."

John Egerton uttered a long groan of disappointment. It was not all over, then. There must be more liftings and irritations, more d.a.m.nable a.s.sociation with this vileness.

"O _Lord_!" he protested. "Stephen, I can't...." His face was pale and almost piteous under the moon.

Stephen answered him without petulance this time. "John, old man--for G.o.d's sake, see it through ... we _must_ get on, and I can't do it without you.... I'm awfully sorry.... It's got to be done...." The appeal in his voice succeeded as an irritable outburst could not have done.

John Egerton braced himself again. In his own mind he recognized the practical wisdom of using the boat. He said with a great weariness, "Come on then."

It was a long and difficult business getting that body into the boat. A flight of wooden steps led down from the wall to the water, and from there the boat--a small motor-boat, half-dinghy, half-canoe--had to be hauled in with a boathook for Stephen to step acrobatically into her and unfasten the moorings. Then she had to be paddled close up under the wall and fastened lightly to the steps. While Stephen was doing this a tug swished by, with a black string of barges clinging clumsily astern.

The red eye of her port-light glared banefully across the water. John felt that the man in that tug must guess infallibly what work he was at.

A solitary lantern in the stern of the sternmost barge flickered about the single figure standing at the tiller. He could see the face of the man, turned unmistakably towards him.

She was travelling fast, and Stephen cursed as her wash took hold of his little boat and tossed her up and banged her against the wall and the rickety steps. John, leaning anxiously over, could hear his muttered execrations as he fended her off.

Then there was a hot, whispered argument--on the best way of getting the body down, Stephen standing swaying in the boat, with his face upturned, like some ridiculous moonlight lover, John flinging down a.s.sertions and reasonings in a forced whisper which broke now and then into a harsh undertone. Stephen thought it should be carted down the steps. John, with an aching objection to further prolonged contact with the thing, said it should be lowered with a rope. "Haven't you a bit of rope?" he reiterated--"a bit of rope--much the best."

Sick of argument, Stephen fumbled with wild mutterings in his locker, and brought out in a muddle of oil-cans and tools a length of stout cord. Together they made a rough bight about Emily's middle, together lifted her to the flat stone parapet of the wall.

When she was there a dog barked suspiciously in Hammerton Terrace; another echoed him along The Chase. The two men crouched against the wall in a tense and ridiculous agitation.

Through all these emergencies and arguments and m.u.f.fled objurgations there stirred in John's mind ironical recollections of pa.s.sages in detective stories, where dead bodies were constantly being transported with facility and dispatch in any desired direction. It seemed so easy in the books, it was so d.a.m.nably difficult in practice--or so they were finding it.

And always there was the menace of Margery's return; she must be back soon, she would certainly come out into the garden on a night like this....

When they had the body stretched flat and ready on the wall, Stephen went back into the boat. It had sidled down below the steps, and had to be hauled back. The tide was maddeningly strong. Stephen urged the boat with imprecations under the wall. To keep it there he must hold on stoutly with a boathook, and could give little help to John in the detested task of lowering the sack. John's hands were clammy with sweat like the hands of a gross man. He gripped the rope with a desperate energy and thrust Emily gently over the side. The rope dragged and sc.r.a.ped across the parapet; the body swayed in the moonlight with a preposterous see-saw motion. When it was half-way to the water, they heard a tug puffing rhythmically towards them--somewhere beyond the Island. It was not yet in sight, but a resistless unreasoning panic immediately invaded them. Stephen, with one free hand, clawed recklessly at an edge of sacking; John, in a furious effort to quicken the descent of Emily, lost altogether his control of the rope. The rope slipped swiftly through his moist and impotent palms. Emily, with an intimidating b.u.mp and a wooden clatter of sculls, fell ponderously into the boat and lay sprawled across the gunwale. A sibilant "d.a.m.ned fool!"

slid up the wall from Stephen, almost overbalanced by the sudden descent of the body. The two men waited with an elaborate a.s.sumption of innocence while the tug fussed past, their hearts pounding absurdly.

Then, before the wash had come, John Egerton stepped gingerly down the creaking steps, and they pushed out into the rolling reflection of the moon. The nose of the boat lifted steeply on the oily swell of the tug's wash, and the head of Emily slipped down with a thump over the thwart, her feet still projecting obliquely over the side; John Egerton pulled them in. He looked back with a new disquiet at the still and silvery houses of Hammerton Terrace, at the dim shrubberies along The Chase.

There were lights in some of the houses. Out there under the public moon he felt very visible and suspect--a naked feeling.

He heard a remote mutter from Stephen, paddling in the bows: "Too many of these d.a.m.ned tugs!" and another: "This filthy _moon_!" They were working slowly against the tide between the Island and the mainland of The Chase. Stephen's plan was to round the top of the Island, cross the river, and get rid of Emily in the shadows of the other side, drifting down with the tide.

Even in the narrow channel by the bank the tide was exasperating, and paddling the boat, heavy with the engine, was slow work and strenuous.

But the engine would be too noisy. And it was an uncertain starter.

Stephen said at last, "h.e.l.l! get out the sculls!"

John Egerton groped in the locker for rowlocks with an oppressive sense of incompetence and delay. His fingers moved with an ineffectual urgency in a messy confusion of spanners and oil-cans, tins of grease, and slimy labyrinths of thin cord. Only one rowlock was discoverable.

The finding of the second became in his mind a task of inconceivable importance and difficulty. Vast issues depended on it--Stephen ...

Margery ... babies ... Emily Gaunt ... and somehow or other Mrs. Bantam.

Thunderous mutterings rolled down distantly from the bows. John groaned helplessly. He caught his fingers sharply on the edge of a screw-driver.

"It's not here ... it's not here ... it _can't_ be, Stephen." With a sense of heroic measures he hauled out in clattering handfuls the whole muddle of implements in the locker. Under the electric coil lurked the missing rowlock.

"Row, then, like the devil," ordered Stephen. Out here, in this strange watery adventure, Stephen was the readily acknowledged commander. John rowed, with grunts and splashings.

They rounded the Island, the moon glowing remotely beyond it through the traceries of young willow stems. Stephen was doing something with an anchor at the mouth of the sack, breathing audibly through his nose.

John sculled obliquely across the river, struggling against the tide, steadily losing ground, he felt. "Losing ground," he thought insanely, "ought to be losing _water_, of course." So strangely do the minds of men move in critical hours.

When they were half-way over, the chunk-chunk of a motor-boat came lazily upstream. "G.o.d!" said Stephen, "a police-boat." John thought, "Will it _never_ end?" It was appalling, this acc.u.mulation of obstacles and delays and potential witnesses. He was tired now, and acutely conscious of a general perspiration.

They drifted downstream under the bank, while the police-boat phutted up on the far side, a low black shape without lights. Caped figures chattered easily in the stern and took no evident notice of the small white motor-boat under the bank; but Stephen and John imagined fatal suspicions and perceptions proceeding under the peaked caps. They pa.s.sed.

"_Now!_" Stephen was fiddling with his anchor again, tugging at a knot; his tone was final. "Take her out into the middle again ... _quick_!"

John pulled gallantly with his left. They were opposite the house again now, moving smoothly towards Hammersmith Bridge. No other craft was in sight or sound.

Stephen said thickly, "If we don't get her over now, we never shall ...

stand by.... No, no ... you trim the boat.... I'll manage it."

He edged Emily close up against the gunwale, her extremities on a couple of thwarts, her middle sagging down the side of the boat. He looked quickly up the river and down the river and at Hammerton Terrace and at the oil-mills below and at the empty towpath on the opposite bank, all silent, all still. Stephen put a hand under the sack. Close by a tiny fish leaped lightly from the river. Stephen saw the flash of its belly, and took his hand away with a start. Then with a great heave under Emily's middle, a violent pushing and lifting with feet and body and arms, that set the sculls clattering and the boat precariously rocking he got the body half over the gunwale, John perched anxiously on the other side, striving to correct the already dangerous list. Stephen struggled blasphemously with the infuriating sack. Somehow, somewhere it was maddeningly entangled with something in the boat. Frantic tugging and thrusting, irritable oaths, moved it not at all. John looked fearfully behind him. A lighted omnibus was swimming through s.p.a.ce, perilously near ... Hammersmith Bridge. Stephen was kicking the body now with a futile savagery.

"What the h.e.l.l?" he said. "O G.o.d!"

John groped distantly with a hand in the dark. Then, "The anchor!" he said--"the anchor's caught...." He heard a relieved "O Lord!" from Stephen, "thought I'd put the anchor end over first"--and for the first time made himself a petulant comment, "Why the devil didn't you?" It was too much--this sort of thing. Then the s.h.a.ggy end of the sack was slithering quietly over the side, the anchor twinkled swiftly in the moon, and the relieved boat rocked suddenly with a wild, delighted levity. Emily was gone.

Peering back upstream, the two men saw a slowly expanding circle on the black water And there were a few bubbles. Emily was indeed gone.

Stephen sat in a limp posture of absolute exhaustion, his shoulders hunched, his head on his hands, speechless.